You can’t blame Boris Johnson for jetting off to Kyiv last week for another meet-and-greet session with Volodymyr Zelensky. He got a warmer reception from the Ukrainian President than he would have in Doncaster, the town he snubbed in order to grandstand on the international stage.
Johnson was scheduled to have made an appearance at the conference of northern Conservatives, where organisers had hoped he would woo Red Wall voters by explaining how, two and a half years after they loaned him their vote, he intends to ‘level up’ their town.
But to the consternation of many MPs, Johnson decided he had more important issues on the other side of Europe with his ‘great friend’ Zelensky. It’s not just the President who can’t get enough of the British PM; he’s also captured the hearts of Ukraine’s Cossack community who have officially made him one of their own, bestowing on Johnson the name ‘Boris Chuprina’, which means ‘a long lock of hair’.
Hard-nosed but not cold-hearted, they have enough problems of their own without worrying about what’s going on more than a thousand miles to the east
It beats ‘the clown’, which is how he is known – if the rumours are to be believed – in the Elysée Palace.
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